For those of us of an older generation, the Vietnam War was a seminal event that can dredge up a range of emotions. I was too young in the 1960s to be concerned about actually having to fight, but I was old enough to follow what was going on. I remember things like body-count reports on the evening news, and having a map of Vietnam in our basement rec room at home. So I was looking forward to visiting Vietnam, and so far I’ve not been disappointed.

Arrival at the airport in Saigon was tedious as it took an hour to snake through the immigration queue, and traffic is crazy — there are 10 million people and 7.5 million scooters — so it’s been an experience. But our overall impressions are good. Saigon is now a very vibrant city. We wish we had time to explore more of it, but we are happy we came.

We started off on our first day with a trip to the Mekong Delta. It involved a couple more boat rides, including on a sampan, and a visit to another local farmer’s house. Lunch was at a nearby restaurant, reached by traveling on the Vietnamese version of a tuk-tuk. There are a lot of scooter/motorcycle powered vehicles in this part of the world. Watch the video of one of the restaurant servers hand-making individual fresh spring rolls from a so-called elephant fish. It was delicious.

Day two was devoted to Saigon itself, first via a walking tour, later on the back of a scooter. The walking tour focused on some of the remaining French colonial architecture and then some of the prominent structures during years of American involvement. Most prominent was the presidential palace of the former South Vietnam. It’s now a museum that preserves the structure in all of its 1960s and 70s glory, such as it was.

Related to that structure was a side trip to a narrow house elsewhere in the city. It was in this house that a North Vietnamese double agent constructed a secret underground bunker where the Viet Cong stashed weapons that they later used to attack the presidential palace during the 1968 Tet offensive.

The attack wasn’t successful in a military sense — the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces were able to ultimately fend off the attackers, but the attack, along with the entire Tet offensive, helped pop the hot air balloon that we were “winning” in Vietnam and helped turn American sentiment against the war.

We also visited the post office, which is notable for its French architecture. Nearby was the former headquarters of the CIA during the years of American involvement. It’s actually not that much of a building, but anyone around when the South Vietnamese government collapsed remembers the photo of the helicopter that was atop it, with a man reaching out to help Vietnamese scrambling up a ladder to board.

Last but not least, in the evening we went on a scooter and food tour, which was an absolute blast. Facebook users have seen some of this, but we repeat for those who aren’t on the platform. The videos give you a bit of the flavor. The food, particularly the banh mi sandwich, was excellent.